{"id":42128,"date":"2025-01-06T14:03:31","date_gmt":"2025-01-06T19:03:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/?p=42128"},"modified":"2025-01-06T14:03:31","modified_gmt":"2025-01-06T19:03:31","slug":"bear-grylls-criticized-for-referring-to-virgin-mary-as-a-palestinian-girl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2025\/01\/bear-grylls-criticized-for-referring-to-virgin-mary-as-a-palestinian-girl.html","title":{"rendered":"Bear Grylls Criticized For Referring to Virgin Mary as a \u201cPalestinian girl\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Adobe Stock | Inset: Loredana Sangiuliano \/ Shutterstock.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Survivalist Bear Grylls is feeling the social media heat after referring to Mary, the mother of Jesus, as a \u201cPalestinian girl.\u201d Grylls posted to X to promote his new book, The Greatest Story Ever Told<\/em>, a retelling of the biblical account. On his post, Grylls wrote, \u201cIn these next few days billions of us around the world celebrate the birth of a Middle Eastern refugee who, 2,000 years ago, changed the course of the world forever.\u201d He went on to describe Mary, the mother of Jesus as, \u201ca young, poor, and no doubt terrified Palestinian girl, [who] gives birth in a run-down animal pen, to a baby who was foretold for hundreds of years. Yet she was not alone. And she never would be.\u201d<\/p>\n

Grylls\u2019 original post received instant criticism for characterizing Jesus as a \u201crefugee\u201d and Mary as a \u201cPalestinian girl.\u201d The Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA) reposted<\/a> Grylls\u2019 original message, calling the use of Palestine \u201cpropaganda.\u201d \u201cThe region wasn\u2019t called \u2018Palestine\u2019 until 100 years later when the Judeans (Jews) were exiled and Emperor Hadrian renamed it Syria Palaestina after the Bar Kokhba Revolt to try to sever the Jewish connection to the land,\u201d the CAA stated. It also took issue with the characterization of Jesus and his family as refugees. \u201cWhile Mary\u2019s family fled to Egypt to escape King Herod\u2019s persecution, calling her a \u2018Palestinian refugee\u2019 not only imposes modern terminology on ancient history, but completely eradicates her Jewish identity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Grylls quickly took down the original post and replaced it<\/a> on Christmas day. While still referring to Jesus as \u201can impoverished Middle Eastern refugee,\u201d he changed his characterization of Mary as \u201ca young, poor, and no doubt terrified girl living in first-century Palestine\u2026\u201d He defended his decision to refer to the area as \u201cPalestine\u201d in the comments<\/a>. \u201cI referred to this area as Palestine as per the maps you will find in most Bibles,\u201d he wrote. \u201cI refer to Palestine as the general area that Mary lived in. I am not referring to her nationality or ethnicity. She was clearly Jewish,\u201d he later said. He also defended referring to Jesus as a refugee, noting how he, Mary, and Joseph were forced to flee to Egypt to avoid Herod\u2019s decree to kill all male babies born in Bethlehem, as described in the Gospel of Mattew. In another post, he wrote<\/a>, \u201cAnd if you think Mary’s country of origin is controversial wait until you read the bulk of what is in The Greatest Story Ever Told.\u201d<\/p>\n

The use of \u201cPalestine\u201d to characterize the region of Israel has been controversial for decades, with tensions increasing since the attack against Israeli concertgoers on October 7, 2023, and the subsequent response from Israel against the Gaza region, which has been characterized by some critics as a \u201cgenocide.\u201d In an op-ed for The Telegraph<\/em><\/a>, <\/em>George Chesterton warned against using \u201cPalestinian\u201d to refer to Jesus in a way the Bible never uses. \u201cThere is, of course, a deeper precedent for this, in that Jesus\u2019 Jewishness has been played down since the third century, when Christianity proliferated into Roman society. Then, even more so when his death became an excuse for anti-Semitism in the Middle Ages,\u201d wrote Chesterton. \u201cIn that sense, this attempt to politicise him is nothing new. There was also a certain German group you may have heard of from the 1930s and 40s who were very keen to eliminate any link between Jesus and his Jewish identity.\u201d He called the reference \u201ca political identity that didn\u2019t exist.\u201d \u201cThat\u2019s not something Jesus would have approved of,\u201d concluded Chesterton. \u201cHe was Jewish, after all.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Survivalist Bear Grylls is feeling the social media heat after referring to Mary, the mother of Jesus, as a \u201cPalestinian girl.\u201d Grylls posted to X to promote his new book, The Greatest Story Ever Told, a retelling of the biblical account. On his post, Grylls wrote, \u201cIn these next few days billions of us around…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":627,"featured_media":42110,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6,3544],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-celebrities","category-christmas"],"yoast_head":"\nBear Grylls Criticized For Referring to Virgin Mary as a \u201cPalestinian girl\u201d<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2025\/01\/bear-grylls-criticized-for-referring-to-virgin-mary-as-a-palestinian-girl.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Bear Grylls Criticized For Referring to Virgin Mary as a \u201cPalestinian girl\u201d\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Survivalist Bear Grylls is feeling the social media heat after referring to Mary, the mother of Jesus, as a \u201cPalestinian girl.\u201d Grylls posted to X to promote his new book, The Greatest Story Ever Told, a retelling of the biblical account. 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